Garvinwood Church is a church with friendly fellowship just across from the University of Evansville baseball fields on the Lloyd in Evansville, IN (19 N. Englewood Ave) that meets every Sunday at 10:30 AM.

To sum up the difference in Numbers

Welcome back to Numbers 2sday. I encourage you to look back over the previous blogs to gather a foundation for this blog. To sum up the previous weeks, I am advocating for the importance of the book of Numbers, using many numbers (often sports) from our everyday lives.

Switching from sports briefly, I want to use another example of numbers that may be more applicable in your life: your child’s (or your) grades in school. Like a stat line in basketball, we often keep track of all the grades and all the subjects to show progression and achievement. I want you to ponder with me about your child’s art grade. I always wanted to get straight As while in high school (an achievement I was able to finally figure out how to accomplish during undergraduate school at Oakland City University). My second to last 9 weeks, I got straight As and then 1 B+ in art class. I thought, I can do it. The next 9 weeks, I tried harder than ever in art class, striving to finally get straight As. Practice makes perfect, right? So you can guess what happened… I got a C+ that 9 weeks in art class. Wait, what? Yes, working harder, thinking more, and being creative caused me to get a worse grade in art. The same strategy that worked in other classes did not work in art. For the most part, art is something that just happens. When you over think it, you over do it. This brings us to chapter 3 of Numbers.

When looking at the census for other tribes, they count all males 18 years and older. However, Numbers 3:28 tell us that when taking the census for the Levites, they count all males over 1 month old. What is the reason for the difference? The other tribes needed to know how many males were over 18 so that they knew how many men were military age. Contrastingly, the Levites were exempt from military service. Their service was much different and started much sooner, so that is the reason they needed to know the complete total of males.

Whether you are comparing rebounds for a 7 foot center to a 6 foot guard or comparing grades for English to art, we realize they don’t compare. God has a calling for all of us. He may allow some of us to numerically reach many while He allows others of us to emotionally reach much of 1 or 2 people. The important thing is to know who you are. The Israelites knew each classification of the tribes. Although it may not be that distinct of a difference for us, we all have distinct parts. Trust God to let you know what that is for you.